This disclosure relates to an electrophotographic image forming apparatus.
With the electrophotographic image forming apparatus, a toner is supplied to a circumferential surface of an image carrier such as a photoconductive drum and then a toner image formed on the circumferential surface of the image carrier is transferred onto recording paper to thereby form an image on the recording paper.
Here, provided at a position along the circumferential surface of the image carrier is a cleaning device for collecting the toner remaining on the circumferential surface of the image carrier after the transfer. The cleaning device is composed of: a cleaning blade formed of plate-like urethane rubber which makes contact with the circumferential surface of the image carrier to scrape the toner remaining on the circumferential surface of the image carrier; a collection roller which collects the toner scraped by the cleaning blade; etc. However, upon scraping the toner remaining on the circumferential surface of the image carrier by the cleaning blade, an external additive contained in the toner may firmly adhere to the circumferential surface of the image carrier. Moreover, a foreign substance adhering to the recording paper may adhere to the circumferential surface of the image carrier. It is difficult to remove the aforementioned foreign substance by the cleaning device, and in a case where image formation processing is performed while the aforementioned foreign substance is adhering to the circumferential surface of the image carrier, quality of the formed image may be degraded.
Disclosed for this problem is a technology of stopping the recording paper at a nip area located between the image carrier and a transfer roller by a conveyance roller which conveys the recording paper and rotating the image carrier and the transfer roller in this state to thereby remove the foreign substance adhering to the image carrier.